1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reproducing apparatus, and specifically to a reproducing apparatus for a movie.
2. Description of the Related Art
Apparatuses are known that reproduce a movie recorded on a recording medium, such as a disk medium. Different from still images, it is difficult to know the content of a movie in a short period of time. Hence, in order to make it possible to know the content of a movie in a short period of time, some of such apparatuses have a fast reproduction function, or a function of displaying, in a list screen, predetermined frames of a movie as thumbnail images.
Apparatuses, such as video cameras, are also known that capture a movie or a still image and record them on a recording medium. In general, objects of a movie a user captures with a video camera often include a person.
In recent years, in accordance with advances in face recognition technology, a technology has been developed that allows reproduction of scenes which include a person, from a recorded movie. For instance, a technology is disclosed (for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-8354) that allows a user to display a list of the faces of persons included in a movie or to display scenes including the faces of persons in a time sequence, thereby reproducing scenes corresponding to a face selected by the user.
When a recorded movie is reproduced as described above, each scene is usually reproduced sequentially from the beginning thereof. Usually, an important scene is repeatedly reproduced after rewinding and an unimportant scene is reproduced in a fast forwarding mode or by skipping in units of several seconds to a little more than 10 seconds, for example.
Hence, some operation to repeatedly reproduce an important scene or to skip unimportant scenes in reproduction may be performed. Further, during reproduction of a movie, a user is to perform operations for rewinding or fast-forwarding when the user wants to repeatedly reproduce a scene including a specific face. In addition, the technology described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-8354 does not allow a user to start by cueing a scene including a specific face during reproduction of a movie, and hence operation to interrupt the reproduction of a movie or to go back to a selection screen to display a list of images or images in a time sequence, etc., may be performed.